Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 11, 1995 TAG: 9505110053
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: E-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Coulter retired in 1978 from a 40-year career as a Roanoke Valley educator, but his lifelong interest in sacred music led to his second career as a choir director .
From 1947 until early this year, Coulter directed the choir, and at times played the organ, at Melrose United Methodist Church. His tenure, just two years short of a half-century, ranks among the longest in the Roanoke Valley.
"I was never trained as a musician. I just got it on the job," said the former William Fleming High School principal.
His pastor, the Rev. Richard McNutt, said the old Northwest Roanoke church's music program, thanks to Coulter, has always been of the highest quality.
In a congregation whose membership has dropped from 1,500 to 70 on a good Sunday, the choir is half the size it was when Coulter began his "temporary" duties soon after World War II.
At Christmas and Easter, the choir always did a cantata or other specialized work, Coulter recalled. Coulter's last big one was "He Speaks from the Cross" a year ago.
This was about the time he developed shingles that left him with a painful leg condition that hampered his extensive yard work but not his daily playing on his home organ.
The joy of making music, he said, overshadows the discomfort.
He has not given up the choir entirely, although Patsy Heffernan, a long-time member, has now assumed his duties along with Joyce Elliott, who continues as organist. And despite a spastic throat condition that hampers his speaking, Coulter says he can still sing bass about as well as ever.
Heffernan said Coulter has influenced her life as much as anyone she knows. Years ago, he and her father, Ralph Bowles, were active in the Lions Club together. Now a teacher at Fallon Park School, Heffernan credits Coulter as steering her toward her career after her graduation from East Tennessee State University in 1971.
Heffernan has other memories of him as her high school principal. Her final year at Fleming coincided with Coulter's last as principal there.
"I remember being scared to death of him then," she said. "He and I laugh about it now."
Coulter moved up to director of personnel in the school system the year Heffernan graduated. In that role, he "insisted" that Heffernan become a Roanoke City teacher. She did just that when a suitable job came open.
She also became a choir member under Coulter's direction. He asked her to become the temporary organist, a job for which she says she felt unqualified.
It's a special joy, Heffernan said, to have both Albert Coulter and his wife, Mary Elizabeth, as singers in the choir she now directs.
Heffernan said she is making only a few changes in the church's music. She's introducing some contemporary gospel music to give variety to the old favorites people had come to associate with Coulter.
Coulter began singing with a school glee club in the seventh grade and continued through high school with solo numbers at baccalaureate and graduation. He was 16 when he joined the Melrose church choir. Mary Elizabeth was also a member.
After four years in the Air Force in World War II, Coulter earned a master's degree and began his career as a principal.
He is the only living Roanoke educator who has a high school building - an academic hall at Fleming - named for him.
by CNB